About Compilation of Sri Guru Granth Sahib About Compilation of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Prof. Sahib Singh Lok Sahit Parkashan Amritsar @ Dr. Daljit Singh About Compilation of Sri Guru Granth Sahib (Adi Birh Bare) by Prof. Sahib Singh Translated by S. Dalip Singh All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or, retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher and copyright holder. 1st Edition - 1996 Price - Rs. 500 U.S. $ 50 Cover Design By SUKHWANT SINGH Published and Printed by Kulwant Singh Suri, Lok Sahit Prakashan 186, Green Avenue, Amritsar - 143001. Ph. : 65566 Typesetting by Mis S.B. DeskTop Printers, Amritsar. Printers: Printwell. 146. Industrtaf Focal Point. Amrttsar. 4 Contents Chapter 1 Preparations for Compilation of Sri Guru Granth Sahib 17 Chapter 2 Examination of the Historical Evidence 25 Chapter 3 Events from the life history of Guru Nanak Dev 31 Chapter 4 Inter-Relationship of Guru’s Compositions 39 Chapter 5 Guru Amar Das had all the Compositions of 50 Guru Nanak Dev with him Chapter 6 Praise of Baba Mohan 82 Chapter 7 How the Compositions of Saints (Bhagats) were collected? 85 Chapter 8 Installation of Sri Guru Granth Sahib in Harimandir Sahib, Amritsar 109 Chapter 9 Method of Presentation of Various Compositions in 129 Guru Granth Sahib Chapter 10 Variations between the original copy of Guru Granth 134 and Bhai Banno’s recension Chapter 11 Who were responsible for making intrusion of 163 Extraneous matter in Sri Guru Granth Sahib Chapter 12 Guru Granth Sahib and Compositions of 173 Satta and Balwand Chapter 13 Puratan Janamsakhi (Oldest life history of Guru Nanak Dev) 177 Chapter 14 Information about other Religions and other Information in Sri Guru Granth Sahib 194 Appendix - I Glimpses from the life of Professor Sahib Singh 212 Appendix - II Summary of the Book 234 Appendix - III I A Brief Note on Sikhism 258 Translator’s Note This book was written by late Professor Sahib Singh of Khalsa College, Amritsar (Punjab - India) during 1949-50 and revised by him “in April 1951. The book, remained unpublished till 1970, when Messrs Singh Brothers, Amritsar were pursuaded by the author to publish it. The publishers, for a long time, were not prepared to take any risk against the prevalent strong traditional beliefs based on the fanciful and fascinating stories given by the Sikh historians on compilation of Sri Guru Granth Sahib by the 5th Nanak, Sri Guru Arjan Dev. The Holy Book was compiled.and installed in the Golden Temple, Amritsar on August 16, 1604. More copies of the Holy Book were made for installation at various religious places. Every thing went well for about 70 years, when all of a sudden, under a planned scheme, Narinjanias, followers of Baba Hindal, introduced spurious matter into most of the hand written copies of the Holy Book. Since Sikhs were the custodians of the Holy Book, this mischief could not have been manoeuvred without the co-operation of the corrupt Sikhs. Most copies of the Holy Book, made before 1675 A.D. were thus corrupted, and the copies of the Holy Book prepared from the corrupted copies began to be made as a matter of course for more than a century. The Sikhs woke up only during the last century to print copies from the Original Copy of the Holy Book. There had been much variation in the textual contents of various hand written Holy Books’ made from, 1675 A.D. onwards till the authenticated printed copies of the Holy Book began to be made from the Original Copy of the Holy Book. Questions have been raised by Sikhs and non-Sikhs alike as to which actually the Original Holy Book was as compiled by Guru Arjan Dev, in which the Compositions of the 9th Nanak, Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur, were included later. The fanciful stories given in the history books, written centuries after the compilation of the Holy Book, made the position worse confounded. 7 Professor Sahib Singh had done the genuine research work in this matter. During 1953-54, some important pans of his book were published in the monthly journal “Punjabi Duniya”, giving the cogent answers to all possible questions, that could be raised. Probably hardly anyone took interest in the matter. Even on publication of his book “Adi Birh Bare”, there was no reaction to this most important discovery of the historical facts. Professor Noel Q. King, of California University, Santa Cruz (USA), a renowned world scholar, who has been so kind to write an Introduction to this translation of the book of paramount historical ‘and religious importance, states, “It is amazing how little use has been made of Professor Sahib Singh’s talent during recent years, when the discussion of the Sikh Scripture and Tradition has been taking place on a worldwide scale. It would have certainly saved us a lot of troub1e and side-tracks had we followed Professor Sahib Singh’s guidance and methodology even if we differed from details of his work. Alas, it may never be possible for there to be a full scale English translation of his magnificent Sri Guru Granth Sahib Darpan (ten volumes, Jullundur, 1962-64). “This translation was at the initiative of Professor King alone. This translator firmly believes that God spoke through Professor King, a Great Saint, most loving, charitable, pleasant and sweet personality - A Great Seeker of Truth. The Sikh Community will join this writer in expressing our great sense of gratitude to him, who always upholds and loves Truth. Professor Sahib Singh’s book was lying in obscurity and uncared for. The credit goes as much to Professor King as to Professor Sahib Singh Ji, for revealing the Truth. The coming generations of Sikhs, nay all seekers of Truth, shall remember both of these academicians with love and gratitude. We can now answer all possible questions on Compilation of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, any one may possibly raise. In this translation all the ideas have been taken from the author of the book. However, with a view to easy understanding of the issues involved and the answers thereto, we had to re-arrange the matter. Chapter 8 of the book is now Chapter 12. Chapter 11 and 12, have a1so been re-arranged. Chapter 10 now deals with inclusion of all types of spurious matter in the copies of the Holy Book, and chapter 11 deals with, who were responsible for making intrusion of extraneous matter in the copies of the holy Book. In the original book, inclusion of a part of the spurious matter has been dealt within chapter 11 and another part in chapter 12, which over lapped, and was not easy to understand. We have added three more sections in 8 this translation work – (1) Appendix I - On the glimpses from the life of Professor Sahib Singh Ji, from the book of his auto-biography. (2) Appendix II - Giving a summary of the book in coherent and lucid form, for an easy understanding of the whole thing. (3) Appendix III - A brief note on Sikhism. The translator is highly obliged to Dr. Darsnan Singh Bhatia, Sc. D. of Atlanta (USA) for whetting the translation work and other material added. The decision to make changes in’ the set up of the book referred to in the preceding paragraph was taken in consultation with Prof. Noel Q. ‘King and Dr. Darshan Singh Bhatia, Sc. D. who after thorough study of the book agreed to effect the changes in the interest of clarifications of the important issues involved and to help the reader for a quick grasp or the essentials. The, observations made by Dr. Darshan Singh on the’ important issues, which were not so clear, greatly helped for the revised set. up; The translator again extends his gratitude to Dr. Darshan Singh for the help extended by him. Jan. 5, 1996 DALIP SINGH 8640, Players Court Largo, FL 34647 (USA) 9 10 Foreword From each generation from Guru Nanak Dev Ji onwards the Sikhs have preserved and conserved with critical skill the. integrity and purity of their Scriptural Tradition. Major architects in the process - were Guru Arjan Dev, Guru Gobiod Singh Maharaj and Bhai Gurdas Ji, but always the community played an appropriate part. At various times some scholars have shown themselves to be prepared to study methods learned from other traditions of scholarship, but the mainstream has always been natural, indigenous, growing organically out of the community, based on reason, common sense and the consensus of Sangat life, past; present and still to come. Professor Sahib Singh, who died in 1977, was one of the greatest proponents of this naturally based form of the study of Sikh Scripture and Tradition. He was one of those scholars, who came up the hard way from an educationally disadvantaged background. His family were not the kind who could send him off to an expensive British type boarding school and certainly higher education of the British University type was hard to get. Again, he was not able to receive much education of the high falutin Sanskritic or Farsi type, but he made the most of the best solid education that the Punjab could provide. Above all, he had a brilliant clear brain with a gift for asking deeply penetrating questions. This was coupled with a single minded self discipline and devotion to the truth of the Sikh Scripture. His writings are part of the such heritage of Sikh studies which as time passes will remain closed not only to those who chose to ignore it but to foreign scholars of good will, who have a modicum of Gurmukhi, but cannot read it quickly, without the help of a Punjabi friend.